Before Sept. 11, 2001, going to an airport in the United States was a breeze. You could show up less than an hour before your departure and have your family accompany you right up to the gate.
But after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, airport security has never been the same. The hijackings of four commercial jetliners that day led to the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which established the Transportation Security Administration and requires more rigorous screening and all checked baggage to be screened by X-rays. Now, on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, most fliers are used to long delays through TSA and having their identity checked multiple times before boarding.
But it didn’t use to be like that. “When I teach my history of aviation course, I now have students who weren’t born on 9/11, and they’re stunned,” said Janet Bednarek, an urban history professor at the University of Dayton and a former historian with the United States Air Force. “They can’t believe how things were before 9/11.”
Here’s a walk back through history on the most dramatic differences between airport travel in the U.S. before 2001 and now.
There were no long airport security lines.
Dave Buresh via Getty Images
Today, airport security wait times can exceed an hour during busy periods at major airports because of travel document checks, baggage inspection and full-body scans.
Screening has become “part of the overall passenger experience,” said Jeff Price, an aviation security expert at Metropolitan State University of Denver and former assistant security director at Denver International Airport.
But before 9/11, it could take minutes. Security “was very cursory, nothing compared to the pat-downs they do today,” Price said. He explained that it could involve walking through a metal detector and having a hand wand waved over your body by a private contractor making minimum wage.
“By and large, you could walk right up to the checkpoint 10 minutes before the door closes on your plane, and expect to get through with five minutes to spare to get your coffee,” Price explained. “Before, security was like a NASCAR pit stop. You were in, you were out, you didn’t even think about it.”
There were airport date nights and family fun.
Bob Riha Jr via Getty Images
Before 9/11, airports were designed to be a community gathering space, Bednarek said.
“There were restaurants in airports where people would go for special events,” Bednarek explained. “You go out there and you keep your kids amused, or go out for a nice dinner and sit there and watch planes take off and land.”
Today, TSA is allowing TSA PreCheck members to have access to the terminal beyond airport security when they aren’t flying, but pre-9/11, anyone could bring their whole family to hang out at the airport without fuss.
When she teaches her students, Bednarek said that “the idea that you could bring your whole family to the airport, they could all go to the gate to watch you –– that just sounds like a foreign country to them.”
You didn’t need to show your ID.
Ira Wyman via Getty Images
Today, if you forget your ID or your passport, you are out of luck. You will not be permitted to board your flight without showing eligible forms of identification to gate agents. But that wasn’t always the case.
“You did not need to present documentation of any kind. There was no travel document check station,” Price said.
“You didn’t even need ID for a long time. As long as you had a ticket, you could get on an airplane,” Bednarek recalled. “Through the early ’90s, you went to a travel agency to buy your airplane tickets, and they printed them out for you. As long as you had that ticket, you could get onto the airplane.”
Airport security restrictions were so minimal you could carry knives.
U.S. Navy via Getty Images
Today, U.S. travelers go through elaborate scanners and biometric identity checkpoints. Fliers can be asked to only carry on liquids of 3.4 ounces or less, as well as take certain electronics out of bags at airport security.
“We’re definitely safer. It’s a much more robust system than it used to be,” Price said. “We check people’s ID to make sure that people don’t get on planes that shouldn’t be. The technologies are much more sophisticated and better than what we used before.”
But before 9/11 and the creation of TSA, security was much more lax and inconsistent. There were bomb-sniffing dogs checking travelers in the ’70s, but travelers could carry blades. The Federal Aviation Administration allowed knives with blades up to 4 inches in length on board commercial planes, as one example. And according to the 9/11 Commission Report, the hijackers on 9/11 are believed to have carried knives or razor blades, which they later used in their attacks.
“If those [9/11] hijackers’ knives would have been found at the checkpoint, [security] would have handed them right back to them and said, “Have a nice flight,’ because those were allowed,” Price said.
Price said that airlines’ biggest worries were the size of your carry-on bag, not necessarily the contents. To prevent people from taking bags that were too big for the overhead bin, airlines “had airports put a metal cutout in the front of the X-ray machine” that showed the correct size for bags.
The Aviation and Transportation Security Act “was a gigantic reset switch” after the Sept. 11 attacks that required more stringent background checks on airport workers and checked bag screenings, Price said. Knives, box cutters and razors got banned after the attacks.
The vast security apparatus within airports is now the first and largest thing travelers often encounter when they head to the airport. That’s by design.
Before 9/11, “airports and the airlines did not want to make security highly visible because they were afraid that it would make people fearful of flying,” Bednarek said. “Now you have to have it very visible, or else people will be afraid of flying.”
“For those of us who remember before and after, every time I fly, I’m reminded of 9/11,” Bednarek said about her experience through screenings. Newly designed terminals are “being designed to accommodate and make your first experience: security.”
